Sandpoint skier shines in rookie season on Freeride World Tour

Lydia Nelsen was a toddler when she went skiing for the first time.

She was a year old when her parents took her skiing at Schweitzer for the first time. Fast forward 18 years, the athlete is just coming off her rookie season on the Freeride World Tour.

Nelsen, 19, has been skiing ever since that first visit to Schweitzer. While she took a break from skiing in middle school to try snowboarding, she fell in love with skiing again in her freshman year of high school when she started skiing again. That, Nelsen said, is when she truly found her passion for the sport.

She hasn’t looked back since.

It wasn’t too long after rediscovering that passion that Nelsen tried her hand at skiing competitively.

When she was 15, Nelsen signed up for her first freeride competition with her friends at Schweitzer. While that competition was canceled due to weather conditions — and every competition afterward that she signed up for was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It wouldn’t be until near the end of the season when she was 16 that Nelson was able to compete for the first time.

Nelsen was able to compete the entire next season and ended up qualifying for Junior Worlds.

Two years ago, Nelsen qualified for the Junior World Tour and then competed last year in Kappl, Austria. 

“Although I didn’t have a great run in Kappl and ended up crashing twice, I learned a lot and enjoyed the crazy mountain ranges in Europe,” Nelsen said. “This was my first experience dealing with jet lag, doing visual inspection, and having a drone fly over my head while competing for the live stream. These are all things that I’m still getting used to after my first season on the Freeride World Tour.”

It was after that season on the Junior Tour that Nelsen qualified for the Freeride World Tour.

The start of the season was “interesting,” with the first two stops in the Pyrenees being canceled due to lack of snow coverage. The first competition ended up getting moved to Verbier, Switzerland, less than a week before skiers competed, Nelsen said. 

“I didn’t get the result I wanted but met so many cool people and had a lot of fun and many valuable life experiences,” Nelsen said.

When Nelsen was 15, she started watching the Freeride World Tour, quickly finding a favorite skier in Hedvig Wessel. After a break last year, Wesselwas announced to the Sandpoint skier’s delight that she was coming back on the tour.

“[I was] so stoked for the opportunity to compete with her. She was super sweet, positive, and encouraging.”

Nelsen praised the other skiers on the tour, saying that “every one of the girls on the tour continues to impress and inspire [her].”

Competing against skiers she’s previously watched on TV is, in many ways, a dream come true, Nelsen said.

“It was a wild experience to compete on the Freeride World Tour next to my idols I’ve been watching on TV for years,” she said.

So far this year, Nelsen has traveled all over the world to compete on the tour with her favorite spot being Georgia — the country, not the state.

“Before this year I didn’t even know there was a country called Georgia. It’s one of the wildest places I’ve been and feels different than anywhere else. It was a journey to get there for sure,” Nelsen said. “Georgia has some of the craziest mountains I’ve seen, along with some super cool wild dogs. We met one dog on a summit after ski touring and for the rest of the trip he was in the village to greet us every morning. Plus, we finally got some good snow for the comp. After the comp we had a day to explore the city with friends before flying out, one highlight was exploring an old castle.”

While her season this year's World Tour may be over, her ski season is far from complete. Nelsen now heads to Colorado for the Challenger series to try and qualify for the World Tour next year.

    Lydia Nelsen competes on the Freeride World Tour recently in Tbilisi, Georgia.
  

    Lydia Nelsen scopes our her line during a recent competition in the Freeride World Tour. Athletes are also allowed to use drone footage and pictures to help them find their lines.